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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A cabbage salad dressed with a creamy egg and butter mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add cream, salt, vinegar, and butter to the eggs.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until thick.

Assemble and serve

  1. Chop the cabbage finely and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Once the dressing is cold, add the chopped cabbage and 2 tablespoons of cream.

  3. Mix well and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken on cooking to form the creamy body of the dressing.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the dressing's texture.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, fresh bulk of the salad.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder flavor in the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set and thicken with gentle heat, but high heat or lack of stirring can scramble the eggs into lumps. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the custard smooth and thick.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, butter, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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